News reporters and anchors have repeatedly referred to the recent tragedy in Las Vegas as the “worst mass shooting in U.S. history.” Like all things that are constantly repeated, the proclamation has become fact.

In 2013 a report by the Congressional Research Service defined a public mass shooting (pdf) this way:

incidents occurring in relatively public places, involving four or more deaths—not including the shooter(s)—and gunmen who select victims somewhat indiscriminately. The violence in these cases is not a means to an end such as robbery or terrorism.

So, according to that broad definition, we wondered: Is 64-year-old Stephen Paddock the worst mass shooter in the long history of America? Does the Las Vegas incident qualify as the “deadliest” mass-shooting incident?

He is right. The nearsightedness of America’s historical vision is not only hyperbolic, but that vision often has a blind spot when it comes to people of color. There are countless incidents in which black and brown people were killed in incidents far worse than what happened in Vegas. Here are some of them:

The Bombing of Black Wall Street

On June 1, 1921, white rioters looted and burned the black area of Tulsa, Okla., known as Black Wall Street. Angry at the economic success of blacks in the area (the area became known as “Black Wall Street” because of the number of successful businesses and wealthy black inhabitants), white Tulsans accused a black man of raping a girl and attacked the area.

While white citizens used dynamite and planes to bomb the city, leaving more than 8,000 people homeless, eyewitness accounts charge that the vast majority of the people killed (estimates range from 80 to 300) died because the city’s law-enforcement officers deputized every able-bodied white man and handed out weapons from the city’s armory.

Shortly after the fighting had broken out at the courthouse, a large number of whites – many of whom had only a little while earlier been members of the would-be lynch mob — gathered outside of police headquarters on Second Street. There, perhaps as many as five-hundred white men and boys were sworn-in by police officers as “Special Deputies.” Some were provided with badges or ribbons indicating their new status. Many, it appears, also were given specific instructions. According to Laurel G. Buck, a white bricklayer who was sworn-in as one of these ‘Special Deputies”, a police officer bluntly told him to “Get a gun and get a nigger.”

Shortly thereafter, whites began breaking into downtown sporting goods stores, pawnshops, and hardware stores, stealing — or “borrowing” as some would later claim — guns and ammunition … a Tulsa police officer helped to dole out the guns that were taken from his store.

More bloodshed soon followed, as whites began gunning down any African Americans that they discovered downtown.

Bloody Island Massacre

In the mid-1800s, Charles Stone and Andre Kelsey began enslaving the Native American Pomo of Clearlake, Calif. They forced the Pomo to bring them their daughters for sexual pleasure. They killed the Pomo for trying to escape. They only “paid them” 4 cups of wheat per day. One day, two of the Pomo, Shuk and Xasis, went to look for more food, borrowing Stone and Kelsey’s horses. When it became apparent that they wouldn’t find food, the men knew that Stone and Kelsey would kill them if they found out that they had used their horses, so they killed Stone and Kelsey instead.

Capt. Nathaniel Lyon was searching for the men to punish them and brought soldiers and white civilians. When they found members of the Pomo tribe hiding on Bloody Island, near Clearlake, they slaughtered 60 of the island’s 400 inhabitants. On their way back, they killed another 75 on the Russia River for good measure.

Colfax Massacre

On April 13, 1873, black people in Colfax, La., began gathering at the courthouse and digging trenches. They were afraid that whites, disgruntled by Republican rule and a court decision that allowed blacks to vote, were about to attack. A civilian militia of angry white men surrounded the courthouse and convinced the blacks to hand in their weapons and surrender. The black citizens complied.

And that’s when the massacre started.

As many as 40 times more blacks were killed than whites. They invaded the courthouse and killed unarmed men. They hunted down women and children trying to hide in the surrounding woods. They dumped bodies in the river. They took 50 prisoners but later summarily killed them one by one. Historian Eric Foner called it “the bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era … ”

At least 150 black citizens were killed. Three white men died. No one was ever convicted of a crime.

Thibodaux Massacre

In 1887 nearly 100,000 black sugar-plantation workers in Thibodaux, La., decided to protest their unfair treatment, low wages and the holding of workers’ wages until the end of the season, forcing them into a kind of indentured servitude.

In response, Judge Taylor Beattie, who owned a sugar plantation, declared martial law and paid a 300-man private militia to keep the peace. The militia ordered every black person in the city to show a pass or leave. The blacks who didn’t were rounded up with their families and executed. In all, between 35 and 100 blacks were killed. The count is not official because some bodies were burned.

The Elaine Massacre

In 1919, black sharecroppers gathered outside of Elaine, Ark., to listen to Robert L. Hill explain how sharecropping was unfair and to advocate for voting rights. The meeting was guarded by Union troops, but when white men showed up at the meeting, shots were exchanged. The sheriff then called for a posse to find the people responsible.

Five hundred to 1,000 white men rushed in from across the country to hunt down the killers and quell the “Negro insurrection.” When it was over, 237 black people were dead. Then all-white juries charged and sentenced 12 blacks to death. Another 36 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and 67 were convicted of other crimes.

The mass deaths at Philadelphia’s MOVE headquarters in 1985 don’t make the list because law-enforcement officers bombed the men, women and children living there. And the time whites nearly wiped out the Wiyot Native American tribe in 1860 doesn’t belong on this list because the Wiyot were killed with knives and hatchets as well as guns.

While all loss of life is tragic, on the scale of white people killing people of color, Paddock wouldn’t even make the all-star team. But, like all mediocre white guys, regardless of historical facts, he will be thought of as “great.”

There is no excuse for violence against another for any reason, and should not be condoned by anyone. this whole 4 thugs torture a poor defenseless mentally challenged child” narrative is skewed. I read a lot of comments under the videos presented and news stories written about this event. It seems that folks can hardly wait to spew venom at the supposed perpetrators of a crime against someone they deem innocent, harmless and defenseless.

And then I remember. The innocents who were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved and stuffed in the hulls of ships during the North Atlantic Slave trade. I remember the many who died and who still cry in the slave Castles of Elmina. I remember standing there and feeling the walls close in on me as their cries ripped my ears apart. I remember not being able to even read the entire book “Black cargoes.”

I remember Antoine Sterling, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and many others who simply wanted to be able to be treated like human beings.

I remember the Palestinians, who face torture and trepidation every day as they watch home after home, community after community bulldozed to the ground and their guts squeeze in a vice grip, like a traffic jam.

I remember homeless veterans who fought for a cause not their own, but for a false system with the false belief that it is the protectorate of the world and the way to keep it safe from tyrannical leaders, is to drone democracy down its throat.

I remember the many traumatic false flags perpetrated by a thuggish system that only cares about the financial advantage of its escapades and not the hurt, trauma, guilt and deceit perpetrated on the masses who view this thuggishness.

I remember the many lost children, lost forever and barely recorded by the alphabet agencies, who thru their own complicity, cover up the many scandalous crimes perpetrated against the most vulnerable of our world, our children.

I remember how the churches, mosques and synagogues are filled with hate, deceit, anger, distrust, incest, rape and adultery, while their walls are painted in diamonds and gold.

I remember the buried bodies of aborted fetuses, silenced in the night by the desperation of ill-informed and frightened women, who see their bodies as property for someone else to use and discard of as they see fit.

I see, lost children, stuck in their devices, screaming and fainting when they don’t

get what they feel they deserve no matter how outlandish it may seem to their adult counterparts.

I remember men in dark cloaks, in dark rooms in the middle of the night, who plot and plan the annihilation of millions of people from the face of the planet by any means necessary.

I remember the destruction that is blasted through the media in movie after movie, video game after video game where oversized imaginations struggle to believe it ain’t real, when, all the credits say is, “no animal was hurt in this film.”

I remember the cognitive dissonance.

And then I remember the litany all over again, the pain, hurt, distress, agony, abuse, etc. that one human being can impose on another, but then, somehow, it has to do with race or nothing at all to do with race, or maybe a little bit to do with race, or maybe it’s just ugly people doing ugly things.

And then I remember how fascinated we as humans become, to watch and engage in the total destruction of another human.

Maybe some of it is poor judgment, some of it nervousness, some of it voyeurism and some of it just incredulous, but all of it is us.

Every last one of us. All of it is in us.

And each of us, have the potential to be mean, cruel and despicable as the person we happen to be recently pointing our fingers at.

Cause I remember those cries for blood for the murderer. The lust and pleasure and joy in the eye when the verdict came down, “Execution” and the crowds that gather around to “watch” the “murdering thug” take his last breath. I remember the pleas for clemency from that murdering thug both behind bars and free .

I remember how quickly we are able to commit acts of violence, spanning a wide spectrum, against another human being and blame them for just being there, in the way.

So, yeah, those 4 young people, who lost their minds, lost their sensibilities, lost their empathy for another helpless defenseless one, were being insensitive thugs, they were committing a crime, and Facebook was complicit in this criminal act for allowing it to be aired and participating in the agenda of divide and conquer.

And yes, there is justice, and yes, there is truth, but in this reality, were we are all complicit, were we are all capable, so. Let us all remember, but for the Grace of God, go I.

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